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Saturday, January 7th, 2012

Time:

4:46 pm.

I was able to reach my year starting weight goal on January 2, only one day later than I planned. I hit 214.6 on that day, and I've been hovering between that and 215.4 for the past couple days. I think that I'll be able to reach 208 or so by the end of the month when I leave to go to Ohayocon. I just need to stop trying to sleep in on days I work late, and actually wake up early enough to work out. I'm shooting for a goal of walking 365 miles this year, at a mile a day. I haven't done squat so far. Who knows when I'll be able to get started. I figured I'd be able to start things up tonight. But then my useless mother needed to go to the hospital, so I've wasted the last two hours sitting in a fucking waiting room, when I could have been getting other things done instead. But no, that's always what happens when I try and make plans. My plans get screwed over, and I'm always having to adjust things to fit everyone else. I'll be damned if I'm sitting here all night long. Especially with me having to work in the morning. If I have to pick her up after I get off work tomorrow, I will. At least it's sort of on my way.

I have like three weeks left to get my cosplay stuff done for Ohayocon. I feel things getting down to the wire, and I'm starting to stress out about it. I have two complete costumes to make. And props to fix. I'm starting to stress out about it.

It’s going to be so nice when the holiday season is finally over. I honestly don’t know how much more of it I can take at this point before I ram someone’s head through a wall. People are seriously beginning to try my patience at this point, and everyone seems to be out to try and pull a fast one on us day to day. I just want to stress to be able to go away so I can finish up my weight loss without having outside bits of stress on me. I have not been able to lose much of anything this month, and I had a goal I wanted to reach by the end of the year. The way things are looking, I’m likely not going to be able to reach that goal at all. I had really hoped to be able to reach 215 by the end of 2011, and I’m sitting between 218 and 219 almost every day. It’s like my body doesn’t want to budge from that spot. The more and more I hang out with my friends, the heavier and heavier I feel. I feel so uncomfortable with the body I have, because I want so badly to be smaller like them. Because I know I’m able to work towards a goal that would bring me closer to their sizes. I need to stop being so lazy with working out, that maybe I would be able to get more done. 2012 is going to be that year. I accomplished a lot during 2011 as far as my weight loss went. I started off in the high 290s, and I’m now sitting within 20 pounds of 200. 80 pounds in just about a year is a huge thing to do. While I’m happy with that, I’m still not at the point where I’m happy with my own body. I went from a staggering size 22, down to a size 12/13 in pants. I wore an XXL in men’s shirts, and I’m now able to fit into many size Large shirts. Physically, I feel the best I have in a long time, and I’m the lightest I’ve been since I was in high school. People I haven’t seen in a while keep running into me and telling me they think I look great. However, this is just something I still haven’t been able to accept. I know I can look better. I know I have more weight to lose. Thing is, I feel like it’s becoming an obsession. I’m glad to have found something I’ve been able to keep motivated with, as I tend to lose motivation quickly with almost anything I do. It’s been decided. I’m going to just flat out set my final goal of 175. I have 43 more pounds to lose (we’ll just say 45 for ease of math.) June 30, exactly 6 months from today, is my set goal date. That gives me 24 weeks to lose the last of the weight. I need to start being more strict about things from here on out. If I expect to be able to reach my goals, I need to actually get up and do something about it. Let 2012 be the year I am different. The year I become the person I want to be.

December is coming to a quick end, and I'm seeing that I need to change things quickly if I expect to reach any of the goals I have set for myself. This week has been absolutely terrible for me by sense of how I've been eating. Because I've had friends stay the night the past three nights, we've been going out to eat, and I certainly don't see the scale moving as it should be. I did, however, order a really nice treadmill online on Friday. I plan on using that multiple times a week to kick my ass into gear to lose the last 17 pounds before Ohayocon. I want to be proud of my body there, instead of looking back at what I could have done and ask myself why I slacked during the holidays. The only thing is because the stress is getting to me, I think that's why I'm at a standstill with my weight. I just need to sit and breathe for a little bit, or drink a few pots of green tea tonight. I'm going to be pulling a 6 day week with overtime next week, and things aren't going to be back to normal for at least a few weeks. If I can get down to 210 by the new year, I'll be happy. And honestly, I think if I burn enough calories by running, I should be able to lose those last few pounds before New Year's. I want so badly to be comfortable with my body by that convention. I'm just tired of feeling like I'm not making progress, even though I am. Losing 7 inches off my waist in 6 months, and going from a size 22 to a size 12 is a lot of change to go through.

I need to stop being so impulsive with money. As time goes on, I see my debts climbing. I don't want that to happen, and I really need to start controlling that a bit better. My goal is to get my credit cards completely paid off next year, and it looks like almost half of my wages are gonna be dedicated to that in 2012. Of course I have all this stuff I'm wanting to upgrade, like my laptop and camera. Laptop will run me about 2 grand, and the camera I want to get is around 700. Sounds like I'll really need to kick myself into gear if I expect to be able to pull this stuff off in the next year. This also means I'm going to need to live very below my means next year, at least until I get most of my debts paid off. I'm working on the snowball method, and I'm paying off my card with the highest interest rates first, then going to the smaller ones. When tax season rolls around, I should be able to get a good chunk of that paid off, if not the whole thing.

According to some of the debt calculators I've used, it's looking like 2014 will be when I'm out of debt. Yeah, no. 2012 is do or die. One of my biggest problems is the fact that I love collecting video games. Sometimes I don't even end up playing them, and they end up staying sealed on my shelves. In doing so, I've been deemed a game hoarder by some people. It kind of makes sense though, even if I'm not proud to admit that fact. If I could just play the games I want to, and get through the ones I want to sell off when finished, it would be great. 2012 goal: actually play and beat the games I own. I plan to acquire very few games after 2012 hits. Final Fantasy XIII-2 in January, Tales of the Abyss in February, and Tales of Graces in March.

I just want to be able to get things paid off, and not have to live from paycheck to paycheck.

Since I got home from Youmacon 3 weeks ago, the scale hasn't truly budged at all for me. I've been sitting stuck ranging from 219-223. I was so happy when I saw the scale hit 219.8, and just because of all of the stress I've been going through, I haven't been able to maintain the loss. I was 221.2 this morning, which makes me feel a lot more like I'm able to push through all of this.

I've been stressing out a lot lately over friendships that I feel like I've fucked over. I kind of revealed some things to the girl I was talking about in my last entry, and she got pissed at me because I was "smothering" her. I didn't think that I was, but she did just get out of a really bad relationship, and she's hiding herself away from her friends. I don't know what else I can do. I'm gathering things together by what I'm seeing with her family and whatnot, and I can tell she's not in the best situation at home. Not to mention, she's letting her own mind wander a lot as well, and she's having a hard time accepting the fact that her relationship ended. 8 years is a long time for someone younger than me to be with someone. She was engaged too. That's a big deal, and to see something like lusting over another person caused that to end? I can see why she's hurting.

She's admitted to me that she feels like she's being extremely selfish for asking for time to herself. I understand that she needs space, but seeing her suffer like that is tearing me apart at the same time. I'm way too dedicated of a friend to want to see one of them like this, and know there is nothing that I can do to help her get out of things. That's what is bothering me the most about everything. I feel like a helpless and useless friend. I care about my friends too much. Perhaps that's a fault of mine, but I know it shows the loyalty I have in regard to my friends. I'm not willing to abandon them by any means, but I really have to learn to respect space a bit more. I know she needs time. I'm just starting to get to know her, and I'm interested in making sure she's happy. I'm that way with all of my friends, especially the few really close friends I have. I'd rather not have a ton of friends that I'm not close to, than to have a small group of friends that I'm extremely close to.

I'm getting to the point where the end of the year, and it's time to start making the list of things I want to actually be able to get done in 2012.

-I need to start getting better with making impulsive purchases. I've wasted a lot of money on stupid things, and I need to get my debts back in order. It's a piece of stress that I would really be better without, and I'd like to make that possible during 2012. Even if it means living below my means for a while, I'll do it. I owe almost 10 grand in credit card debt. 1000 of that just happening in the last month and a half with repairs on my fucking car. If I can get all of it taken care of in 2012, which is going to be a hell of a challenge, it will be one of the biggest burdens lifted off my shoulders. I'm starting to make a shot at it now, so I think it's something I can do.

-Finish my weight loss. I lost almost 80 pounds so far this year. It's been a long journey that I am not quite done with. I have about 50 pounds that I still need to lose to reach that goal. I'm hoping to be able to have all of that done by April. I'll be happy if I can get down to 175 or so. I honestly don't think I could get much lighter than that. When Acen comes along, I want to be the most comfortable that I have ever been with myself.

-Promotion at work. Things happened this year that moved me to another store for the holidays. By working at a busier store, and showing my new manager that I am up to the challenge, I've been showing my worth, and he's told me that I've been one of the best Assistant managers that he's worked with. I'm hoping when the holidays end, and February comes along, that I can be picked to interview and have my own store.

-2012 Cosplay list. I want to just be able to get all of them done on time, and I want all of them to look good. I'd like to be able to improve my skill at cosplaying, and I plan to make some more difficult costumes here in the near future.

It's hard to believe that it's already been a month since I started at my new store. Things took a little bit of time to get settled in, but I think I'm adapting well. One of the funny things is just how much I miss my old store, and how I'm always keeping track of how their ranking is sitting in our district throughout the time I've been away. My concentration is now on getting my new store's ranking up, and I've been working hard in making that contribution.

It took me about a week and a half to settle in on just how to get numbers, but after that week, I was able to figure out how I had to work to meet the minimum numbers of the store. I'm not going to fret if I have one off week, as every week barring the first one has been met with solid performance. That's the one thing I prided myself in at my old store. We were a very slow and low volume store, but we always had the highest numbers in the district at all times. The only thing was that our sales numbers kept our company ranking lower. Except for during the manager's conference. My SGA and myself worked together to wreck faces during the week everyone was gone. And we succeeded with a first place regional finish, at 85th overall in the entire company. Considering we have over 4000 stores, that was a really great feeling that we were able to pull things off like that. I've been working hard to try and get the ranking up at this store, and we're doing pretty well on getting those numbers up so far. I need to be able to be successful during the holiday season in order for me to be looked at after the holidays for a promotion. I know it's going to be hard work, and I know it's going to take a certain level of dedication, but I feel that I am ready to grab the reigns and run with it. I need this in order to have any hope of furthering my career on a professional level. We'll see how things go and move forward from there. I've already learned a lot at this new store so far, and I only feel myself getting better as time goes on.

And what I truly hope for? Is to eventually be able to go back to my old store as the new store manager. I'd love to be able to give back to the store that I've already given so much to. And it kind of makes sense. Our district manager likes to keep people relatively close to home, and driving to the store I do now is further away for me. Potential moves in the future can easily put the new manager of my old store into the store I'm in now, since he lives close to that one and was already a store manager once. I'm hoping the pieces of the puzzle get put back into place for me eventually.

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I also stopped updating my other blog that was dedicated solely to weight loss, I kind of ended up turning this one into my life and weight loss journal. Kind of makes sense since I've had this journal for so many years. I started the weight loss journey one year ago, back in October of 2010. I started out at a staggering 296 pounds. To think i EVER let myself get to be that heavy. I know I didn't carry the weight like that, but my knees were always sore, and I was always tired and exhausted any time I would do anything. I was battling high blood pressure, and I was dangerously close to becoming a diabetic. It was bad. I got picked on a ton, and was always ridiculed for my weight. It was a matter of enough was enough, and I knew a lifestyle change had to happen, and had to happen quickly in order for me to make the proper changes. The only thing was, I didn't actually lose all that much weight for the first 8 months of my journey. In June, I was only able to get myself down to 270. I still got picked on after convention photos of myself showed up online. That pretty much ended up lighting a fire under my ass and causing me to start working harder, and actually trying.

Starting in June, I began watching the number of calories I consumed each day, along with starting to exercise a little bit more than I was initially. But most of the diet was food related. And it worked amazingly well. It is now Mid October, and I've lost more weight in 4 months than I did in the first 8. I'm down to 229-230 right now. Obviously that ranges a little bit based on different factors. I'm well on the route to be able to reach my goal by Youmacon of 225. Once I reach that, then my next goal of 200 comes into play. I'm set to be able to reach that one by January. If all goes well, I'm going to be able to do that as well. And then the final final stretch to 175-180. Once all is said and done, I think I'll be able to weigh 175 comfortably. I'll be at a healthy BMI, be a normal size, and be able to cosplay a lot of the characters I'd love to do, but am too scared to try because of my weight and size.

If money isn't terrible during the holidays, I'm thinking about buying a treadmill or elliptical for the apartment. Anything that's going to help me be able to workout will be great. I have the Kinect for Dance Central, but having options should be able to quell the boredom!

20 days until Youmacon, and around 6 more pounds to shave off until then. Let's do this!

It's worrying me quite a bit that one of my friends has appeared to fall off the face of the planet in the past few days. I last talked to her on Tuesday night, and got off when I had to go to bed. She was talking about wanting to disappear and saying that people wouldn't miss her. It worries me the most that I haven't seen her online or heard from her since that point. Her cell phone has been disconnected, and there is no answer at her parents house, even when I left a message on the machine. Driving out to her place can't happen because of the damn distance and my lack of gas until payday. She's probably okay, but I can't help but have that thought in the back of my mind.

We have less than 30 days until Youmacon, and I am certainly starting to feel the crunch of time. I have so much that needs to get done before the convention, and I'm finding myself having less and less time to get things finished, and spending more and more time stressing out over everything. On the list of my to-do's before Youmacon, I'm sitting on the following:

-Finish detailing Taokaka's leg warmers-Restyle Suika wig, and reattach the horns-Finish making Suika's hairbow-Make new set of wristbands for Suika-Headband commission for Aaron's Alice-Detail Stephen's sword-Make my own cosplay sword

I don't even think I'm going to be able to start making Ex-Keine at this point. I wanted to wait until I was able to lose most of the weight to get her started, and I know I'm to the point where losing the last of the weight is going to be a pain in the neck to lose. I'm trying to work on toning my body up, and building a little bit of muscle to counter the last of the weight. I've been able to drop down to 231 at this point, with just 6 more pounds to go until I reach my Youmacon goal weight. I went for a nice two mile walk today with Amber, so I was able to get in a nice cardio workout today.

I've reached the final stretch of my weight loss journey, and I know it's going to be difficult to finish everything off. But I know i can do it. I need to be able to prove to myself that I have the strength to pull through.

I've always been the one to think that things happen for a reason, and when one door closes and locks, another door is open, waiting for you to step through it. I'm going to step through that door and take the opportunity I have now been given with the confidence that people have toward me. Yesterday almost felt like a punch to the stomach, when I learned that I had clocked out for the last time as the assistant manager of my store.

My third key had a rough start, and ran into a lot of rocky patches during her year and a half of working under me. There were times that she could have easily lost her job for things that were going on, but we gave her a chance to improve on herself. Expectations were definitely exceeded, and her promotion was well deserved. She's worried that she's not going to be able to fill the gap that my presence held in the store. A year ago, I would have laughed at the prospect of her taking my place, but looking at it now, she's going to do fine. It just sucks that it took so long for the two of us to see eye to eye, and then we are now separated.

Yesterday I was told that there was no way possible for me to be promoted to the position of store manager at my store. An ASM that was able to reach their full potential at such a low volume store is still not quite ready to be promoted. Hopefully this is going to be the final move that is going to take place before I'm given the opportunity to run my own store. I start on Saturday at my new store. I'm excited about it, but at the same time, I'm nervous because I haven't worked in a busy store in a long time. I forget how it feels to always have something going on, and to always have people in the store.

I've also moved from a ritzy high class neighborhood store, to basically the ghetto. It's the store in our district that closes the earliest every day of the week, and is known to be in one of the worst areas of Canton. That alone makes me a little on the nervous side, but I'm pretty sure I won't have any issues handling things. If I'm able to prove myself here during the holidays, I'll be given the opportunity to move up in the company as I would like to. Just to hear what my district manager had to say about me and my performance at this store made me really happy. It shows that he's got confidence in my ability to succeed, and I guess that is the boost I needed for myself.

To have actual 40 hour weeks, real shifts that aren't stupid as hell, and two actual days off a week? I'm not going to know how to react to things. I'm looking forward to seeing what this new store is going to bring to me. I just know I need to buy a thing of mace when I get paid tomorrow.

T minus 59 days until Youmacon, which now gives me just under two months to rip out my hair working on cosplay stuff. Still got around 19 pounds to lose, but I feel things toning up, so I'm beginning to think I am getting some muscle weight, which is fine. But I still have quite a few inches I'd like to be able to take off my waist before the convention. If I can lose two more inches off my waist, I'll be super happy. But I gotta start disciplining myself harder. Like this whole week, we've been eating pizza, because we had a midnight release for Madden and had a ton of it left. It's quick and easy to throw in the microwave, so we've just finished that up. Granted I've hardly had a day this week where I went over on calories, I know a pizza diet is not the best choice for me with calories. I'm bouncing between 244.4 and 245.2 at this point, so I really want to see that scale start moving again.

After a little bit more research into thermogenics, I decided that it would be worth giving Oxy Elite Pro a try. It's still cheaper than D4, and has gotten nearly as many good reviews as it. I started the pills yesterday, so I'm working on building up to the normal dose of three pills max a day. I'm probably going to stick with taking two a day up until Youma, and see how it works for me. I've read a few reports that people feel serious jitters on this stuff. I haven't felt any yet. It was the hydroxycut that made me jittery. I still dropped two pounds on it in the two weeks the bottle lasted me. I have approximately one month of being able to go outside for biking, and I'd like to be able to make the most of it. If all goes well, I'll be able to go Monday, Tuesday, and Friday. As long as the weather doesn't throw me off. Maybe if I'm lucky, I'll be able to hit 240 in the next week and a half or so. Once I blast past a 10 pound barrier, I get motivated enough to continue pushing forward.

It's like, I'm happy about what I've accomplished so far, but I still feel like it's not enough. I know it's not, as I know I can get further. Especially as much as I've lost so far. Being able to take that envelope and push it a little bit further is exciting for me. Just knowing that one day in the future, I'll be below 200 pounds. I know I can never be an extra skinny girl, but I know my body can lose a lot more weight in order to be healthy. To know there may be one day I will no longer be deemed plus sized. Those thoughts make me push further ahead every day.

I have an extremely supportive group of friends. Some of them I might not see often, but they are the ones I keep in touch with online as much as I can. These are the people pushing me forward every day. It's not just about me doing this for myself. I've looked at it so far as a journey that has inspired some of the people I know to start trying to lose weight. People have come to me and asked me for hints and tips on what I am doing. Barring taking the thermogenics, which I only recently started taking again after quitting them in December, everything is being done by diet and exercise alone. The Oxy Elite is just that extra boost I'm needing to get my metabolism to stabilize and keep itself up. I've never been one with a quick metabolism, and I often joke that I gain weight just by looking at food the wrong way. Sometimes I truly believe that.

But all the diets I've ever tried have always been so restrictive. This is the first one that's really allowed me to eat whatever I want, and long as I'm being mindful of calories and portions. I have in no way felt that I've deprived myself of eating the foods I want.

I'm finally starting to come out of my shell again and socialize a little bit more with people. I realized by not hanging out with people a lot in college, I got really socially awkward, and I often feel uncomfortable around people. Actually going out and hanging out with friends is helping me out greatly. Yesterday I had a good chunk of the day off work, so Stephen and I hung out with Nara and Marly. I've never really met Nara outside of costume before, but ran into her at Borders the week before. We talked for a couple minutes, but that was it. We finally managed to find the time to get the four of us together to hang out. It was a lot of fun. We hung out while they were working on cosplay props, then went out to dinner. I think seeing the stuff being worked on is enough motivation to get me started on my stuff tonight and see what I can accomplish this week. I still need to order the pattern for Keine, along with the petticoat. Maybe this paycheck, maybe the next one.

I think it's safe to say I've reached the point in my diet where I'm really only losing a pound a week. I haven't felt this great in a while. My knees aren't hurting anymore, my blood pressure has dropped back to normal, and my body is finally able to keep my blood sugar steady again. I think I was able to beat the borderline diabetes.

But this does not mean I'm quitting. I'm still working hard, and I'm down to 244 now. Hitting 225 by youmacon is looking to be a bit harder than I thought, as I only lost like 6 pounds in august, rather than the 8 or 9 I was expecting.

The summer is winding down, so I don't have many more days to bike before it starts getting cold. I'm gonna have to come up with some indoor workouts to keep in shape while it's cooler. I'm actually thinking about investing in an indoor bike trainer, just to keep myself in shape. I have a tendency to slack otherwise.

I need to also snag another bottle of my weight loss pills. I'm not sure which one to go after now. I took D4 during the winter when I wasn't working out, and lost 15 pounds on that. They were just really expensive. I just finished a bottle of hydroxycut max, and lost 3 pounds on that in 2 weeks. Both worked, but hydroxycut is a bit cheaper. Gold card week starts at GNC tomorrow, so I'll see how much two bottles of each will be with discounts, since my card expires this month.

I'm pretty sure if I keep working hard, I can lose 19 pounds before youmacon. I have just over 2 months left.....

Which means I really need to get started on my cosplay to do list, so I have everything done on time, and everything fits me correctly. Suika needs a few little things done with her, Taokaka needs the shoes fixed, and new legwarmers made, and Keine needs made entirely. Plus, I have to make Bartz for Stephen. I'm a little bit scared of that thought. But I think I can get everything done. I procrastinate and still manage to finish things in time. But I want everything to look good. I need to buy a petticoat and pattern for Keine still. Hoping to be able to start on that next week once my boss is back in town and I actually get two whole days off.

The last week and a half or so has been nothing but a plateau of shit as far as my weight was concerned. I don't know if the 1650 calorie diet had just stopped working, or what was going on with it. But it was like I hit some sort of wall, and my weight didn't want to drop. It wanted to start going back up again. I was at 248.9, then jumped back to 251 in the matter of a couple days. I revamped the diet entirely, and pulled my calories down to 1400 a day. Which I've actually been able to stick pretty soundly to, along with adding exercise in at least 3 days a week. Once I started doing that, the weight began to fall back off again. I'm now down to 246.9, which puts me right back on my schedule again.

I had pretty much stopped biking, and I was only watching the number of calories I was eating every day, and it was working really well. I'm back to biking again, as I've done it twice in the last week, and I plan on going Wednesday and Friday this week as long as the weather is holding up. I also grabbed a set of adjustable weights so I can start lifting and building up some muscle in my body. As the weight keeps coming off, things are going to need to be done to tone everything up. I need to keep getting myself in shape, especially if I'm hoping to reach 225 by Youmacon.

I'm still eating everything I want to eat, but I'm being a lot better about the portions of food that I do eat. Stephen has been following me to an extent, and watching how much he's eating as well. He wants to be able to drop some weight also, but there are times he still goes over when I'm not around.

Since I started this journey back in October 2010, I've lost 50 gut busting pounds. I cannot believe I ever let myself get as heavy as I did. To see the weight coming off, and to see the goal that I'm on my way to.....just wow. I cannot tell you the last time I weighed 200 pounds. I remember being 234 my freshman year of college, back when I played DDR all the time, because I'd hit 250 at that point, and was trying to drop the weight even then. It just didn't work out for me at all. I didn't watch what I ate as much as I said I did.

I'm still trying to get past being hungry as much as I am. I know as time goes on, my body is going to be getting used to as much as I'm eating. And once the weight is off, I'll be able to go to a maintenance diet, which ups the calories for a maintained weight.

Taking things one day at a time. I'm doing this, and I'm going to keep it up without giving up.

Heck, I was even lower in weight than I thought on wednesday. I wanted to see what I was at, so I weighed myself on Thursday, and I was sitting at 248.9! A goal that I never thought I'd be able to reach when I started this up back in October. I'd lost hope so many times. Lost the drive, the motivation, everything. I never thought I would see the scale move in this direction. But to finally see the first goal on my list get reached....just wow.

Seeing it has renewed my hope for my second goal of 225. As long as I can maintain the path that I am on, that goal will be reached by Halloween. Just in time for youmacon. I need to start working on getting my body toned up for the convention too. Especially my upper arms and my legs. I'd love to be able to shave a couple inches off both parts. I've been doing shadow boxing with weights to tone my arms; biking and walking for my legs. I'd prefer to get rid of more if the fat first, then go after the muscle toning. I can definitely feel it building up in my legs, but there's still a lot of flab there. I'm ready to continue the journey though. I've already come this far. There is absolutely no sense in stopping the journey now when I'm already half way there.

I'm hoping that one day she'll come around. I never even really got her back. It was more of an "I'll just talk to you. And she's pretty much stopped doing that. She tells me I'm acting like the overly worried mother. She calls me 'mommy' on Facebook and normally because of our age difference. I try and give her an outlet to vent in, and instead, it's going off on me. It hurts me when it happens, and I haven't pulled away. She doesn't even consider me a close friend, and yet I've looked at her as a close friend since we started talking. I've told her a lot, as we share a lot of similar experiences, but she never wants to be serious at all. I say something serious to her, and she changes the subject to something totally different. It's ridiculous. I don't know what is going to happen come youmacon. If I hang out with her, I'll be a creepy stalker. If I don't? I'll get bitched at for ignoring her. It's kind of a lose lose situation here. I even went up to visit her when I was in Cleveland a couple weeks ago. I feel like I wasted my time with that one. I thought she'd be happy to see me, but no. Maybe I'm foolish for being willing to wait until she comes around. I just want to still be that friend that is there for her when she needs someone. I guess it's been so long since I've had a friend I was able to be so close to.

The weight loss has still been coming along swimmingly. On Monday, I was at 251.5, just a pound and a half shy of my first goal of 250! With the way my food intake has been the past two days, I'd be willing to guess I've dropped to 250.5. I have to push for 248 with my Monday weigh in next week in order to get back on track. If it's not raining tonight when I get off work, I'll go for a walk with Stephen, or a bike ride on my own. I haven't actually gone biking in almost two months, so it'll be nice getting back on the path sometime this week. This has truly become an obsession for me. I haven't done much exercising on the diet, as the weight has steadily been coming off. But I want to kick things into high gear since I have the rest of the summer left. If I can increase things to an extra half pound off a week, that would be great. I need to start taking in some of my cosplays to make them smaller, or else it's going to look like I'm wearing a garbage bag at youmacon. Some of my old shirts that were once too tight on me are finally starting to fit me again. I'd been in an XXL shirt and size 20-22 pant for so long, I was used to it. And those pants were super tight in the waist. Now, I cannot keep them up without a belt. I desperately need new pants, but I don't want to keep buying when I know I'm gonna not fit into them in 6 months. My once XXL shirts are now going back to XL shirts, and fitting me once again. I can't see the changes, but I know they are happening. And everyone else seems to be seeing it too. I'm starting to feel better about myself, and feel better in health as well. I'm not exhausted all the time, my knees aren't hurting as badly either. It's been a long road so far, but I know I can reach my goals. I have 3 goals set. 250, 225, and 200. I've nearly reached the 250 goal. One day at a time for me.

And I realized that I still lose myself in a live Conor Oberst performance as I did in 2006. I don't even know why, but even with the newer songs I didn't know, I still got that feeling.

I don't like being a vengeful person, and to lose something that is really important to me? I don't want to take it lying down. In the few months that we were friends, yes, I developed a crush on her, and yes, it clouded my judgement. We both said things to each other that we regretted (at least I know I did.)

I wanted another chance. I wanted to try again. To start fresh, and slowly make changes. My insecurity is one of the things that caused issues to begin with. But as the weight keeps coming off, I'm starting to feel better and better about myself. As I keep trudging forward to my goal, I know I'm eventually going to have a confidence I've never had. It's there. It's been dying to come out.

It's funny to see that my primary source of motivation is something as silly as wanting to be able to cosplay as certain characters. Threats of my health weren't even able to do anything for me. As I see my costume making skills slowly grow, I'm finding more and more characters I'd like to try, but I'm not going to fool myself. I know that there are boundaries in cosplay that my current build is not meant to do.

I have a fantastic network of extremely supportive friends that have done nothing but continue to keep me motivated in my work in not only the creation of costumes, but the progress of my weight loss as well.

It will be so nice to be able to wake up one day and realize that my legs are no longer rubbing together at the rate they currently are.

To know that one day, the scale is going to be under 200, a weight I haven't been since high school. How much more can I lose? How skinny can I get with this frame and be healthy? It's turning out to be an interesting journey so far.

I've finally cut away a scab from my life. Someone I've been involved with for long enough. The time to begin healing is now. But I know this is going to make me a stronger person.

People warned me from the beginning about her. I was blinded by these lustful feelings I had, and thought maybe I would be that different friend. I vowed to be there for her. I didn't judge, didn't abandon, and stuck with her through countless issues. She spent the whole relationship leeching off me. I virtually made a whole commission for her because it was the only way for me to get hotel money at acen. I paid for her badge with the promise that I would get 25.00 of that badge back. I drove 4 hours round trip on 3 or 4 occasions to bring her to my house for a couple days, and I fed her while she was over. I asked for nothing in return. Just a good friend.

People lashed out at her, she lost friends, and made enemies while I was with her, and I stuck around. I'm an intensely loyal friend to those I care about. People who know me well enough know this. I get accused of being a suffocating friend. Don't you think you'd be trying to make your friend feel better if they just broke up with someone? She'd log off line on me, and not answer text messages. Apparently this was her hint to me. I assumed she was mad at me and I wanted to know why. When she finally talked, I was told I was extremely insecure, and she just didn't want to talk.

Fair enough, I know I'm insecure. Past happenings have made me that way. I don't try to be insecure. It comes with my appearance and body size. She's so damn full of herself that she says she wants to make herself less attractive because that will take away her problems. She thinks everyone wants in her pants. But I respond by telling her it's the way she acts towards people. Naturally she doesn't want to hear the truth and tells me I'm a problem, to fuck off, I suffocated her as a friend, tried analyzing her too much, etc.

She then blocks me on Facebook. So she's been cut from my life entirely. Looking back, she merely looked at me as a host for her to leech from. Stupid me for falling for it. I was blind, and stupid.

We were close, so naturally I have a small hole to fill, but after opening my eyes to how I was treated, I feel it healing quickly.

I'm still kind of in shock that I found a weight loss regimen that is actually working. I've done a lot of research, and have seen that you can pretty much not do a damn thing as far as exercise goes, so long as the number of calories you consume a day is lower than your basal metabolic rate. Now obviously that's just an easy way out. Combining that with an actual workout schedule, then it works almost twice as hard. Within the last week and a half, I've dropped a half inch off my waist, and lost 5 pounds. I had been stuck at a plateau for so long, that I really needed some movement to pull me out of the motivational slump.

You lose it when you don't see the scale moving, or see a sign of your work paying off. When I started this new thing, seeing that the weight is coming off at a good pace pleases me. I'm not starving myself by any means, but I'm always calculating the number of calories that are going to go into my system. And I am able to mess up once in a while. As long as I set my day up properly, I can go to Coldstone for ice cream, or I can have that occasional burger or taco. That's one of the great freedoms about this diet. I'm not banning my favorite foods from it. Moderation is key.

And of course my work schedule has epically failed for a while, so getting the chance to go out biking has been impossible. I decided to spring on the Kinect as a means to helping me lose weight. So far, it's done well for me. I've been able to play Dance Central a little bit, and I'm enjoying it quite a bit so far. 20 minutes of solid cardio knocks roughly 120 calories off my system each time, and the way I look at it, the weight can only continue to fall off.

My confidence is starting to take a small boost as well. Granted I still have a long way to go, I know it'll only get better for me as I get closer and closer to my goal. I think it's entirely possible for me to meet my goal by November as I'm hoping. I already need to take in my taokaka jacket so it fits better, and Suika was too big the first time I wore the skirt. It's part of the reason I don't want to start Keine up until I'm reasonably close to my goal. She'll likely be drafted at the beginning of October, when ideally I'll be around 210-215.

I decided to not work tomorrow, so I'm going to turn tonight and tomorrow into a super apartment cleaning day. I have a bunch of packages I need to get together to ship on Tuesday, so once I get those together, I can start up another sales post to get rid of more stuff.

Most of the money I'll be coming back from nationals with is going to be put on bills. I want to take out a chunk of my credit card, as I've been doing so well this past month. I need to keep my videogame preorders down to a minimum, which I only have three right now. I have one other game I plan to get preordered, and then I'll work on playing through a bunch of stuff in my library and sell off some of those titles.

I've been working hard to stay above ground, and I know I can do it! Gotta keep my head up and live one day at a time.

Stephen and I celebrated our 4 year anniversary tonight by going to Wasabi for sushi. It's funny how we always do that as our "expensive" dinner. It's even funnier that I'm the one that caused him to have an affinity for the stuff to begin with. He used to think I was strange for liking it, and then he tried it out himself.

I just cant believe I've been with him for four years already.

On another note, I weighed myself yesterday, and I'm down to 259! I was finally able to make it below 260. I still have a long way to go, but to see that sort of progress happening? I'm really proud of it.

I need to make a nice update, but I realize I'm fighting off sleep right now, and I keep misspelling everything.

I know most of my closest friends pay the most attention to my Facebook, but I know I have a few that watch my journal here. Most of my friends know the weight struggles I have gone through for years. I've always been the heavy one, and I let myself get entirely too close to 300 pounds. I'm trying to become skinny for the first time in my life. Overall, I've lost just over 30 pounds so far, and I've been able to keep it all off so far. I'm not done though. I already know that with my best efforts, I'll never be able to fit into a size 6. My frame is just too large for that. I want to be able to cosplay any character from a video game or anime, and be 100% comfortable with my body. At this point, I'm not, and all the shit that happened on 4chan didn't make it any better. Seeing people not only rip apart a costume I was proud of, but tell me that I should feel bad about cosplaying and that I'm fat......really hurt. More hurtful comments were made AFTER I lost the 30 pounds than before.

This time around, I'm starting at 264 pounds. 51" waist, 26" inner thigh. 200 pounds is my goal weight. I'm giving myself until youmacon to meet my goal. I need to push my body to a limit that I never have before. I know I can.

Decided to spend my day off yesterday at Colossalcon. Im really glad that I decided to go, honestly. For the first time, something finally seemed to click with me. I don't know what exactly it was, and what caused it. But I actually felt good in the costume. I had more pictures taken in both of my costumes yesterday than any con I've ever been to. I received so many comments from people about the costume, and it was very well received. I guess I just never felt it lived up to a lot of the good taokaka cosplays I've seen. I've just never been one to take good feedback well. I hate bragging about things, so I tend to try not to be the center of attention. But in Taokaka, I enjoy it. I think I posed for close to 200 pictures from people yesterday, and there are still things I want to add to her. Like those retractable claws that Ret is supposed to make for me. I know once I get those made, along with the accurate shoes, I'll have a fantastic costume to wear. I want to make it as accurate as possible, and I think it's slowly coming along. Suika already needs some fixes, like all three shapes need redone, I'm going to redo the chains on her, as spraypaint does not stay on plastic chain at all, remake her bow for her hair, shrink the skirt a little bit, and re-sew the red bits on (the zig-zag stitch is coming loose.) I have until November to do all of this, and I know I can get this done. So nervous about my ability though.

There are times that I wish I was better at time management. I've always been one of those people who waits until the last possible minute to get something done, and then I end up cramming and NOT doing my best work. I'm thinking about my future cosplay stuff. I have plans of things I'm working on, and know when I want to have them done. I have two costumes that need to be done by youmacon in November, and honestly, I'm waiting because I plan on reaching a goal weight to fit into that costume.

I wish I had better willpower than I do sometimes. I'll sometimes eat without thinking, and then realize later on that it probably wasn't a good idea to begin with. I really need to pick up an indoor bike trainer so I can ride whenever I feel like it. It's usually raining when I actually WANT to go, or in the most recent instance....my path was flooded. I see the biking toning my legs, but I want the frequency of me actually biking to go up. 2 times a week is more than what I did last year, but ideally I'd love to be able to do it 5 times a week. One hour a day, 5 days a week would put me in shape in no time. If I manage my time better, I could pull that off. I need to do something. I only have just above 60 pounds to lose, so I can work on toning at the same time. I'm shooting to be down to 230 by November, then to my goal by march. One day at a time.